by R. Cooper
Dating was what humans did, not fairies. Fairies were supposed to have fun until perhaps someday their fairy luck would lead them to the person guaranteed to bring them happiness.
Clematis turned his head because he didn’t know what his expression would be. “That’s more than I thought.” More than he had expected. He shifted in place as the idea settled. His chest hurt, but the rest of him was numb in a different way than he was used to. He was too aware of the hand still on Flor. “Dating?” he wondered again. What an innocent, beautiful, painful thing Flor had given him. “We’re dating.”
“We’re off to a great start.” Flor sighed noisily. “I need to talk to David,” he wailed to his knees. “He’s better at feelings than me.”
Clematis put both hands in his lap and curled them up tight. When that didn’t work he pushed his palms flat against the cold cement of the retaining wall. He pushed until a flick of his wings would have been enough to send him flying.
“Of course you need to talk to David,” he remarked and looked up at the sky. “David is very smart and good at loving people. Sasha says he always makes time for questions. He’s giving, isn’t he? I thought so… and he is the only one you’ve ever really kept.”
Flor made a small sound. “Are you bothered by me talking to David?”
There were still no clouds in the sky, but the nights were definitely getting colder. “You love David a lot. I know that.” Clematis shivered. “Do you want to get anything else before you go to your meeting? I saw some Orange Dream soda on sale. It’s not your favorite, but the price was great.”
He lowered his head when Flor didn’t answer.
Flor was looking right at him. “Do you mean to hurt me right now?”
Clematis frowned. “Do you not want me to get you something? I thought… that’s what dating couples do. Isn’t it? I can do better. Should I try to be charming, or flirt? Stephanie says I don’t flirt well, that I’m a dork when I try anything other than what I usually do. Do you flirt with someone you’re already dating?”
“Do you not like the idea of me talking to David?” Flor spoke slowly, like Clematis was missing the point. “Are you angry that I ask him things, or bothered about what I tell him?”
Clematis shook his head. It was not that Flor loved David. It was what David was going to say.
“Crystal—my ex—was bothered. But it took me a while to figure it out.” Flor kept staring at him, seeking the truth, probably.
“I don’t mind that you talk to David,” Clematis told him honestly.
Flor unexpectedly narrowed his eyes. But then a moment later he exhaled and threw his arms around Clematis to hide his face in his shoulder. “Okay,” he said, almost in agreement, like they’d made a deal. Fairies were supposed to be tricky about deals, but Clematis had always thought humans were the ones who offered things with strings attached. “Okay,” Flor said again, his breath damp on Clematis’s skin. “I’ll try to talk to David tomorrow.”
“Are you scared?” Clematis was surprised to hear himself asking. His heart was racing, but he thought Flor’s was too. “You don’t have to do anything if you’re scared.” Except of course he did. He was Flor.
Flor looked up. “I am not scared of David,” he declared, but with something defiant in the words.
Maybe he also knew what David would say.
Chapter 13
CLEMATIS DID not hear from Flor again that night, except for one confusing text he must have sent during the meeting.
Nothing here for u to worry about. Also have u ever met a dragon? Do they know they aren’t actually royalty?
Flor might have gone home after the meeting and fallen asleep. Some fairies did all their sleeping at once instead of in snatches.
Clematis didn’t sleep at all. He slipped on a soft pair of purple plaid boxers and sat in front of the TV for several hours, watching reruns of The Golden Girls and getting increasingly confused when Blanche and Dorothy never kissed. Humans had been even more uptight back then, but if it had been any other sitcom and one of them had identified as male, they would have kissed already.
Eventually he got off the couch to walk the neighborhood, watching garbage collectors and bakery delivery trucks do their work just before dawn. Then he went home to shower and get dressed so he could head into the institute. He buttoned his shirt up to his neck, which was too constrictive but it didn’t matter. When he walked in, several noticeable minutes late, he was greeted with the instruction to head down to the basement.
He wasn’t hungry at lunchtime, so he didn’t come up until five o’clock. No one saw him leave except for Collette, who startled out of her chair at the sight of him woozy and wincing at the light, but sat down again when Clematis didn’t stop to talk to her.
He didn’t know where Flor was and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He sat down on the curb in front of the convenience store to text Stephanie, but she was at work and then in class that night. Everyone else he might have called in a mood where he needed to stop thinking no longer felt right. Even Stephanie seemed like a lot. Flor wanted to date him, was dating him, at least for one more day, and that meant, with or without sex first, Flor would want to be the one to make him feel better and take care of him after.
Clematis shuddered with pleasure at the thought, but his feet took him away from the university campus, not toward it and where he might find Flor. His heart beat unevenly, too loud and fast, then almost silent. He had to eat, he knew that, but he wanted chocolates from Flor’s hands and nothing else.
This was how older fairies wasted away. The kind who might have lived for ages but chose not to. Eventually, they all chose not to rather than live alone. But Clematis had lived alone for most of his life and never felt his stomach churn at the thought of food. Even when he didn’t want to eat, he ate. Something he had learned early.
The city park was full of human children basking in the last of the summer sun. He curled up beneath the tree where David had allowed Tulip to keep him and tried to smile for the children who found him and brought him a packet of sticky gummies and watched until he ate them all. He had no gifts to give in return except for letting them feel the tickle of fairy glitter against their little closed eyelids.
When the sky was more violet than orange and the kids had all gone, he rose up to make his way home. His vision was hazy, his guts hollow. Flor would not be happy about that. Clematis was a lot of trouble. He should remind Flor of that when Flor felt guilty for leaving him.
His heartbeat got stronger at the thought, as though someone was pushing on his chest. It would be no different from before, when he and Flor had moved in the same circle of friends without speaking. It would be exactly the same, except now Flor would want to stay close. He would be concerned. He would smile across the room when Clematis came in, and he would frown to see Clematis not eating, or flirting with someone who hated fairies. But he wouldn’t stop him. He wouldn’t talk with him or lie with him on the grass in the sun.
Clematis had been alone before. That shouldn’t matter.
But his chest hurt now, enough to make him stop to rest with one hand against the post of a sign. He tipped his head up, though there was no sunlight to catch, and then gazed at the sign itself with a dazed sort of wonder.
He was at the city library, brought here by fairy luck, which was not always the gift humans thought.
He lowered his head and closed his eyes. Without going in, he knew Tulip would be there. Magic would not have led him here otherwise.
Tulip, who had seen what he was and cursed him for it. Tulip, who might have the power to take it away, or change the curse to anything else. It would make this stop, and then when Flor left, it wouldn’t be so bad. Perhaps Clematis could even learn to control the curse to keep Flor around a little longer. Clematis could be the right kind of needy.
His legs trembled when he straightened, but he scraped his hair from his face and pulled at the shirt he hadn’t bothered to remove and slipped into the air-conditione
d chill of the library.
Hushed conversations kept it from total silence, but the closing door shut off the noise of traffic and made the atmosphere serious and peaceful. He saw no plants save one azalea bonsai at the main desk. Flor had a bonsai, but not that kind. It didn’t mean this one wasn’t a gift from him for his troll friend.
Clematis hurried past the circulation desk, glancing through the stacks for any trace of glitter, but a child’s giggle made him stop at the entrance to a room painted in soothing pastels. The books on these shelves came in a rainbow of colors, and all the tables and chairs were small and low to the ground. This late, the children’s section was mostly empty, but Tulip was crouched down not far from the door, helping a tiny human tie her shoe.
Clematis felt a tug at his pants and looked down at another human child, obviously related to the first, with the same dark skin and wide lustrous eyes. He pointed to the top of the shelf not far from Clematis, at a book of poems Clematis remembered from when he’d been young. Clematis got it for him and handed it over with a faint smile.
“Thanks, Mr. Fairy,” the boy whispered shyly, and Tulip snapped his head up in surprise.
“Hey, Tay, why don’t you take your and your sister’s book selection out to your mom?” Tulip suggested without taking his eyes off Clematis. “She’s right around the corner, talking to Mrs. Monson.”
These children were either very well-mannered or very fond of Tulip, or both, because Tay nodded and took his sister’s hand to lead her from the room, both of them holding small stacks of books.
Tulip got to his feet, streaks of dark pink and gold-like jewels in his otherwise white wings. His skin was honey, his hair stark black, his eyes only one color, like Flor’s, except Tulip’s irises were the same shimmering gold that decorated his wings. He wore a buttoned shirt much like Clematis did, but with jeans, and he was barefoot.
Everyone spoke so much about Clematis’s beauty, but Tulip could put on a crown and belong on the stage of a Shakespeare play. He should have been out of place in the gentle hues of the children’s reading room, but until Clematis had walked in, his glitter had been making the place shine.
Tulip had dark glitter, like old gold and ripe berries. Clematis remembered the weight of it in the air when Tulip had spoken those words, and wondered how pale his glitter was in comparison, how pathetic he was in his ugly work clothes with the collar buttoned tight.
“Tulip,” he said uncertainly, quieter than even a library would have demanded.
Tulip considered him without coming any closer. “Clematis.” He swept a look over Clematis’s shoes and pants. He didn’t frown, but something unsettled flickered across his face. “I wasn’t sure when I’d see you again. You haven’t been around these past few months. Not even at David’s birthday party.”
Clematis clenched his hand and glanced away. “I wasn’t going to cause trouble.”
“I’m sure you never mean to,” Tulip remarked in his very soft voice.
Clematis flinched, although that wasn’t anything compared to what Tulip could have said. He scowled at a row of yellow and mint-green paperbacks and curled his hand into an even tighter fist. “I gave people what they wanted.”
“That is one way of looking at it.” Tulip bent down to pick up a slender book and replaced it on a shelf. “It’s true, but it’s also not totally correct, is it?” He looked over, gaze catching Clematis’s before he dropped his and seemed to notice Clematis’s tightly clenched hand.
Clematis hid his fist behind his back. “I gave them what they wanted, and then I took it away,” he corrected, breathing faster. “Is that better? Is that what I need to say?”
Tulip did frown this time, puzzled. “Is that what you think you need to say?” he posed the question as sweetly as he’d spoken to that child.
Tulip was one of those who had never wanted him. Nonetheless, Clematis gave him a heavy look. “I’ll say whatever you want.”
With a deep, disappointed sigh, Tulip spun around and began to pick up more books from the floor. “Why are you here, Clem?” He piled his collection on one of the tables and absently sorted them. “You’ve never approached me on my own before. Should I be worried, or was that your last attempt to seduce me? If you don’t mind me saying so, it was even more half-hearted than usual. You clearly don’t desire me, and I suspect you know I feel the same. I don’t know why you bother.”
“You’ve never liked me.” Clematis realized the wall was supposed to be the sky, starting with the colors of morning, settling at bright blue in the middle of the room, and then turning to evening as it came back to the door.
“Is that a reason for trying to seduce me, or for why you never try very hard?” Tulip glanced over. “And David? You’ve done the same with him, until last year, at least, when it finally worked.”
“I didn’t seduce David,” Clematis insisted. No one seemed to believe him, fairy or not. “He decided.”
“He decided?” Tulip echoed, a very strange expression on his face. “Do you not make choices, Clematis? Because I’ve witnessed you make several.”
“Bad ones, I know.” Clematis stared down at his sneakers. “I don’t think about other people and what they want once the sex is over. I forgot David’s feelings because I pretended he didn’t want me to care, even though I know him, and know that is never what he’d want. I’ve upset everyone in the group at one point or another because I’m selfish and thoughtless and don’t know what to say unless someone wants to fuck me.”
Tulip put the last book down with a soft thump. “Did you come here to tell me all that?”
“I’m here because I—” Clematis couldn’t tell if Tulip was watching him and didn’t want to look. “I need it to stop. I need the curse to be over, or to go away for a while so I can be okay again. Right now it—I feel too much, Tu. It’s too much. Please. Anything you want,” he promised blindly, although Tulip wouldn’t demand something as easy as sex. “Please, Tu.”
“Curse,” Tulip said the word with a shocked little hiss, but then went silent for aching moments. “Clematis,” he started again, when Clematis could not keep the shake from his wings, “I’m afraid I don’t understand. You want me to help you to feel less?” Clematis nodded. “You think I cursed you to feel?” Tulip went on, voice rising.
“Yes.” Clematis risked a look up. Tulip was openly staring at him. Clematis swung around to study the evening section of the walls. “I know it’s not how others are. But it’s how I am. And I need it back or I… I won’t be able to take it.”
He heard a quick flutter of Tulip’s wings. “Clematis, I didn’t do anything to your feelings. That is not how our magic works. The only thing we use to influence someone’s emotions is ourselves.” Tulip’s feet barely made a sound on the carpet. Clematis turned to see Tulip now only a few feet away, still staring at him, still bemused. “Do you not know how our magic works? Oh,” Tulip exclaimed in almost the same breath. “You don’t. Clematis. Clematis, what’s going on? Why weren’t you at David’s party, really?”
“It’s what everyone needed.” Clematis had a hard time keeping his head up. Tulip had eyes that saw a lot, especially when David wasn’t around to distract him. “David didn’t want me there and neither did you. Neither did Stephanie, or anyone else, except Flor, a little bit.” Tulip slowly raised both eyebrows. Clematis huffed and prepared to say it all again. “I’ve gone through everyone, haven’t I? I was charming or soft or proud until I wasn’t anymore, and now they don’t like me much. I talked about David when he didn’t want me to. I used him for his shine and because he’s close to—I used him. And now he is yours, so you don’t like me either.” Tulip’s eyebrows went even higher. Clematis sniffed and glanced to the side. “I never thought anyone would be hurt by what I did—no. I never thought any of you would be that hurt. There are a lot of humans I did mean to hurt. The ones who leave and sneer and laugh at us. But not anyone here. Not David. But I… I didn’t think he would care.” He opened his hand and held i
t out palm up, earnest. “David didn’t really want me. He wanted you, or Flor, or both. I didn’t think it mattered.”
“He’s your friend. Of course it mattered.” Tulip condemned him without raising his voice.
Clematis forced himself to be still. He breathed out. “That’s how I hurt people. I don’t believe them when they say things like that.” The pressure stayed tight around his ribs. “Anyway, David never loved me.”
“He might have,” Tulip revealed, bringing Clematis’s head up in shock, “if you had allowed him to.”
Clematis was already denying it. “No, David saw you. You’re his happiness.”
Tulip frowned and tipped his head to one side to study Clematis. “I can’t tell if you mean that or if you’re trying to please me in that way you do.”
It was too much all over again. “You see as much as Flor.” Clematis directed his gaze back to the tops of his shoes. “I want it all to go away.”
“Yes, the curse.” Tulip said nothing else for several minutes, listening to Clematis try to catch his breath, the sound loud in the quiet room. “You’re terrified.” Tulip seemed to realize that with a sudden, startled motion. “Clematis, you’re terrified. Of… of feelings? Oh,” he gasped. “Clematis, are you in love?”
Clematis flinched back and jerked his head up to stare at Tulip. His lips parted.
“Oh,” Tulip said again. He stopped his wings. His eyes were wide with genuine sorrow. “Someone has broken your heart,” Tulip declared, squeezing Clematis with every word. “I’m sorry. You might not believe me, but I am.”
Clematis’s voice cracked. “My heart isn’t—my heart isn’t—”
Tulip clasped both of his hands to his chest. “But you’re aware you have one.”
“Everyone has a heart.” Clematis could not smooth out the rasp in his voice. “Even demons.”
“Everyone uses them differently,” Tulip answered. “Some don’t use them at all.” He focused on Clematis, or maybe on his clothing. “This happened very quickly so it must have been someone remarkable. What shiny human finally got you?”